


I Will Carry You Home In My Teeth

by tolarian



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftermath, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Confinement, F/M, HYDRA Trash Party, Identity Porn, Kidnapping, Long Live Feedback Comment Project, M/M, Memory Loss, Monologuing, Non-Consensual Oral Sex, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Violence, Stucky - Freeform, Victim Blaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 09:09:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15992111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tolarian/pseuds/tolarian
Summary: Pierce was talking to Rogers, which didn’t interest Rumlow all that much. They’d get to the good part eventually.If it were up to Rumlow, the least annoying third of the STRIKE team would be in here treating Cap like a mouthy prom date, but it wasn’t his call. Pierce was a visionary, fine, but he was also a talker, and he’d brought the Asset, which was neither. No points for guessing this was Pierce’s show, with the Asset here to remind Rogers of old failures and Rumlow himself to remind him of more recent ones. Hopefully at the same time, one at each end. That might even make up for the bone-deep annoyance that a whole STRIKE team (plus reinforcements, for Chrissake) hadn’t been able to take Rogers down, but this thing had made him meek as a lamb.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [To the Victor](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10644843) by [dragonspell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonspell/pseuds/dragonspell). 
  * Inspired by [Revenant](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1536380) by [stele3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stele3/pseuds/stele3). 



> Context: This fic assumes that Maria Hill did NOT rescue Steve, Natasha, and Sam after the attack on the bridge and that they were subsequently brought to a HYDRA base. HTP, ho!
> 
> The incredibly misleading alternate summary is “Steve and Bucky go cottaging.” If you end up finding that funny, congratulations: I, too, am a complete monster.
> 
> Other Notes: this depicts unambiguous, violent non-con and sexualized violence on top of canon-typical violence. The narrative following Steve’s feelings includes some self-directed victim-blaming. There’s a brief, purely imagined reference to vore. There’s a brief, non-descriptive reference to adolescent sexuality. (This is turning into quite the list.) Please double-check the tags if you are at all sensitive to these triggers and take care of yourself. See End Notes for a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of content notes.
> 
> Writing a HTP(ish?) fic starting from Rumlow’s perspective is inspired by dragonspell’s awesome To the Victor. Bucky’s excellent kidnapping skills and (eventual) willful consent issues are inspired by stele3’s wonderful Revenant. You should read those!
> 
> Title comes from The Mountain Goats’ song “Grendel’s Mother.”
> 
> Thank-you for reading! Constructive criticism and comments are always welcome.

 

Pierce was talking to Rogers, which didn’t interest Rumlow all that much. They’d get to the good part eventually.

If it were up to Rumlow, the least annoying third of the STRIKE team would be in here treating Cap like a mouthy prom date, but it wasn’t his call. Pierce was a visionary, fine, but he was also a talker, and he’d brought the Asset, which was neither. No points for guessing this was Pierce’s show, with the Asset here to remind Rogers of old failures and Rumlow himself to remind him of more recent ones. Hopefully at the same time, one at each end. That might even make up for the bone-deep annoyance that a whole STRIKE team (plus reinforcements, for Chrissake) hadn’t been able to take Rogers down, but this _thing_ had made him meek as a lamb.

Rogers was still staring up at the Asset, confusion and heartbreak playing on those Boy Scout features. He didn’t seem to notice Rumlow, which rankled. He would have happily reminded Rogers with a kick to the ribs – or better yet, his cock in Cap’s mouth – but Pierce wouldn’t like the improvisation. He’d clearly planned this out and annoying Pierce was well-above Rumlow’s pay grade.

“You think that this thing is your friend,” Pierce was saying to Rogers. He gestured at the Asset, which stood motionless. They made a semi-circle standing over Rogers, whose wrists were held behind his back by the mag-cuffs. The restraints made Rogers bend back, accentuating the breadth of his chest, the column of his neck. His t-shirt was tight over his chest and shoulders, riding up on his stomach. If Pierce hadn’t been such a fucking drama queen, Rumlow would have been snapping pictures on his phone already, but he was sure it wouldn’t suit the tone Pierce was taking. Maybe later. Probably not soon.

“Oh, it was your friend, decades ago. This started out as James Buchanan Barnes. But now, it’s just a thing that follows orders. I’ll demonstrate.”

“Soldier,” Pierce paused. Rumlow thought he could sense Pierce counting beats for effect. The Asset tensed. “Get your cock out and put it in the prisoner’s mouth. No need to be gentle.”

Rogers made a strangled sound. Rumlow sighed with disappointment. He’d expected Rogers to be defiant, to play their stiff-necked, proud Cap. This session should be like any other mission, with STRIKE a little in awe of the man’s squeaky-clean demeanor, his perverse stubbornness, even as they played him. And ultimately HYDRA would break him down, make him new. But Cap already looked lost.

The Asset’s fault. The piece of shit Soviet relic was ruining this.

And it wouldn’t even enjoy itself, that was the kicker. It would take Rumlow’s target, Rumlow’s place in the line-up for a piece of Captain fucking America, and it wouldn’t even appreciate the opportunity. Its expression didn’t change as it stepped closer to Rogers, undoing its pants and jerking the standard-issue underwear down. The Asset’s cock was soft in its hand.

Rumlow rolled his eyes. What a goddamn day.

“Bucky, please-” Rogers began, before the Asset grabbed Rogers’ jaw and fed its cock between his lips. One hand was flat against the wall and the other held Rogers’ jaw in place. The metal one. Rumlow stepped to the side for a better look. He wondered how the hand felt on Rogers’ skin: it wasn’t even gripping all that hard, which hardly seemed in keeping with Pierce’s orders.

Would he have said _Rumlow, please_ like that, if things had gone differently?

What a goddamn _day_.

There was some satisfaction to be had from Rogers’ expression, at least: nostrils flaring, big blues beseeching, looking up at the Asset, which stared ahead at the wall. It left its hips motionless at first, just letting Rogers’ mouth warm up its cock, Rumlow figured.  Then it started to thrust. It looked bored, rolling its hips as if there wasn’t a supersoldier struggling to breathe around its dick. Stretched as they were, those lips were still full and pinker than any man’s lips that Rumlow’s ever seen, making the cock sliding between them even more obscene. But Rogers didn’t bite or struggle: he didn’t do anything but stare up at the Asset.

This was ruining Rumlow’s image of the guy, it really was.

Pierce was unusually quiet and stayed that way until the Asset started thrusting faster, harder, and Rogers started gagging. It wasn’t one big clench of the throat, but just little, intermittent shocks when Rogers’ body couldn’t decide whether to swallow or vomit. Apparently Original Recipe supersoldiers did have gag reflexes. Rollins owed him fifty bucks.

Pierce squatted on the floor, at eye level with Rogers. His tone was genial. “Slow down a little there, Soldier. Tilt his head my way, just a little. But keep up some rhythm. We don’t want him getting bored.”

Pierce’s ‘aw, shucks’ demeanor could have given Rogers’ own a run for its money. Rumlow kept his focus on the big, sad eyes that flickered from Pierce to the Asset. They narrowed at Pierce, widened at the Asset. Funny how much gentler his eyes were for the thing fucking his mouth, pressing its pubes against that too-long nose. When was the last time the techies had hosed that thing down? Before it took out Fury? It was probably pretty musty down there.

And all the while, the Asset’s metal hand angled Roger’s face toward Pierce as its cock thrust sloppily in and out of that perfect mouth. A silver thumb absently stroked the edge of Rogers’ jaw. Maybe it really was enjoying taking what Rumlow had staked out, planned, _earned_ until that colossal fuck-up in the elevator.

Rumlow’s hand drifted to his stun baton and rested there.

“It took some time, Captain Rogers, for your friend to understand what I think you understand now. That you gave him to us when you let him fall from that train.” Rogers’ eyes were watering: a blush was spreading from his neck upward. Pierce raised his voice very slightly. “Of course, he didn’t come to us immediately. You see, the Russians had him first. They found him right where you left him, fixed him up, started getting his head right. Your familiarity with Agent Romanoff should give you some idea of the training they put him through, but the Widow program was just an echo of an altogether more interesting project. Headed by Arnim Zola – yes, I thought you’d appreciate that.”

Rogers moaned. It was a low, miserable sound and it made Rumlow’s cock twitch. Rogers was blinking rapidly, and there was moisture on those ridiculous eyelashes. His eyes reddened as he took a shuddering, noisy sniff in through his nose. It sounded disgusting and Rumlow’s dick twitched again. 

Rumlow wondered if the Asset’s cock tasted grimy, if Rogers had ever had one thrust in his mouth before. He wondered if he’d spend the whole time playing audience to this little show, engaging as it was, if he tuned Pierce out. He stroked the handle of the stun baton the way the Asset did Rogers’ jaw.

“Zola worked wonders with his toy back,” Pierce said. “He’d gotten started at Azzano, though he was annoyed he didn’t it back in one piece, apparently. Soldier, take it out, just long enough to give him a good slap-” The Asset leaned backward, holding its cock – at least it was hard now but that annoyed Rumlow more than it pleased him – in its flesh hand, and backhanded Rogers with the other. The sound rang in the small cell. Rogers’ head snapped to the side, facing Rumlow.

He gave Cap a cheery little wave, but his former CO didn’t appear to notice. Saliva dripped down Rogers’ chin, snot dribbled from his nostrils. He coughed, wetly, and those American-blue eyes were glassy. Blue eyes, flushed skin, and spit dripping from the corner of a bruised red mouth onto a white shirt as the Asset took Rogers’ jaw in its silver hand again. It was practically patriotic.  

Maybe this wasn’t such a waste of a day, after all.

The metal thumb was back on Rogers’ jaw. The Asset hadn’t touched Rogers with the flesh hand yet, only with the fist of Hydra.

Pierce was talking again.

“Then back in, yes, that’s right. You can see the prosthesis works wonderfully. You know, it’s fused into his spine? The serum – yes, the one you’re thinking, exactly - it kept making the body reject the early versions, the files say, but this one stays put just fine. It’s a remarkable piece of engineering. Just like you, really.”

The Asset’s hips were starting to lose rhythm, making smaller, tighter movements, and the flesh hand tensed uselessly against the wall. The metal hand shifted jerkily from Rogers’ jaw to his scalp, taking a handful of sweaty blond hair. The Asset was pulling and pushing Rogers’ head now as much as it was fucking into his mouth. Rogers wasn’t even straining against the rough direction of the hand. His head bobbed back and forth and, for the first time since he’d entered the cell, Rogers closed his eyes and kept them closed. Pierce gave a small, contented smile.

“You curtailed Schmidt’s theatrics, Captain Rogers. I won’t deny it. But you gave us Hydra’s best weapon. You won the war, you did, but you gave us the world when you threw away your friend.”

Another animal moan and a choke that might have been a sob. Rumlow was painfully hard now, stray pubes caught in his foreskin, but he didn’t dare adjust himself during Pierce’s speech.

“I’m glad you understand, Captain Rogers. Soldier, finish on the prisoner’s face.”

The Asset pulled its cock out of Rogers’ mouth. It jerked itself roughly – with the metal hand, which was interesting – and came, twitching, over Roger’s lips and chin. The Asset’s mouth hardened in something like a snarl, but its features quickly smoothed. It deliberately smeared come on Cap's cheeks, wiping off its cock on his face.

Rogers’ roughed-up, painted lips twitched; he looked at the floor.

Rumlow stifled a groan.

The Asset tucked itself back in its pants and waited for further instructions. Rogers slumped forward: the angle must have pulled his arms against the cuffs. The tension emphasized his shoulders. Cap’s hair brushed the Asset’s pant-leg and he took deep, shuddering breaths.

Rumlow was mildly surprised to hear his sigh echoed by Pierce’s.

“Well, that was a good start,” Pierce said. “Agent Rumlow, carry on. Use whatever resources you think necessary. I’m going to have a coffee and then I’ll check back in a bit later.”

Rumlow looked at Rogers: he was as broad as ever, but sagging like that, with come smeared on his face, cheek all swollen, he really just didn’t look right. The Asset stood quietly in front of him, staring ahead.

He thought it over and pressed a thumb to his comm device. “STRIKE Alpha, we have a few spots free on Cap’s dance card. McCauley, Rush, Choi, and Fletcher, report to Interrogation Three. Hadley, if you make it here in two minutes or less, I’ll let you have a go. If not, tough shit. Rollins, you’re not invited because you fucked up at the mall. Rumlow out.”

He palmed himself through his trousers, readjusting. He could start the dance early if he liked. Maybe he’d finish it the same – just him and Cap and the baton.

Soon, though, Cap would look just perfect. Soon, he’d fight back, mouth off, and, eventually, break down. The Asset could stay, Rumlow figured, if it didn’t keep Cap too subdued once the fun really started. It was still less annoying than Rollins and it certainly followed orders more consistently.

And it was Rumlow’s show now.

 

* * *

 

Steve went away, after a while. He knew he was in D.C. and he knew Bucky wouldn’t look at him but would hurt him if ordered. But, really, he was in Brooklyn, getting fixed up after a fight. That’s why he was so sore: he’d taken a real beating behind the diner. They’d put the boot in pretty much everywhere. Bucky was dabbing antiseptic on a cut over his eye as Steve ached deep inside. The light was soft and yellow and Bucky looked beautiful, even when he grimaced.

“Dumbest guy in the city, right here,” Bucky said, but then he smirked. “Except for the chump who wastes his time patching him up. That guy’s a moron and a half.”

Steve tried to apologize but his mouth was full, his lip split and sore. They were still beating him, really, and he’d never left the alley, never would. Bucky had just stood above him and watched. He’d helped the crew in the alley, not Steve, holding him still when they ordered, turning him over when they instructed.

And, eventually, the beating stopped.

Steve woke to Pierce’s voice, though he couldn’t distinguish what the man was saying. Without hearing the words themselves, their tone was measured, trustworthy. He sounded like someone’s father, putting them to bed after a long day.

But then he could pick out the words like _responsibility_ and _the future_ , could feel the floor under his broken cheek, could feel the aching everywhere. He felt damp with sweat and where he wasn’t wet, he felt crusty. He was sidewalk garbage at the height of a city summer.

“Usually, I like to be very careful with my resources,” Pierce said gently. “But you’re not a resource. You’re a liability we can’t afford, not now. Not when we’re so close.” He looked down at Steve, sighed, and he turned to Bucky, who held a gun.

“Soldier, shoot the prisoner in the head. Two taps.”

Bucky looked at him, and Steve smiled as best he could with a swollen, aching face. Everything hurt, but finally, Bucky was looking in his eyes.

And Bucky shot Pierce in the head, twice.

Steve stared, mouth open, and tried to ask Bucky what was happening, but Bucky shifted his grip on the gun and brought it down on Steve’s skull, once, then more than once.

And, eventually, that beating stopped, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Content Notes:
> 
> \- Steve is forced to perform oral sex on Bucky, or rather, to have his mouth forcibly penetrated by Bucky; neither of them are in a position to consent due to Bucky's conditioning  
> \- Bucky orgasms on Steve's face  
> \- Steve is beaten by Bucky and by members of STRIKE; there are several different instances of this, both depicted and referenced  
> \- Rumlow looks forward to sexually assaulting Steve, along with several members of the STRIKE Team; this is not depicted but it is referenced in some detail  
> \- Steve dissociates to some degree; it's not necessarily a medically accurate depiction of dissociation  
> \- Bucky is ordered to kill Steve  
> \- Bucky kills Pierce


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve wakes up (a few times); The Asset settles in to consider its next move.

 

Steve woke up, briefly, in the trunk of a car. He could feel the vibrations from the road – smooth asphalt at highway speed, taking gentle turns. He tried to shift but he was still cuffed, wrists to ankles now.  He thought maybe he’d woken up in a different trunk earlier, but he wasn’t sure.

Soreness reverberated through him, but it was a healing kind of ache. He’d be hungry soon, was hungry already, probably, but one pain couldn’t distinguish itself among so many others. The numbness on the right side of his face was like a gift, in comparison.

That was good, he thought, and then he wasn’t awake anymore. He wasn’t anything.

 

* * *

 

 

Steve woke up again, slung over Bucky’s shoulder. He tried to figure out what it was he was seeing. Grey and green. Cobblestones, maybe, and grass. And the back of Bucky’s legs. Everything was shaky and doubled in his vision, as Bucky stepped up onto a small porch. Increasingly awake, Steve tried not to go too still, but Bucky noticed anyway. The arm – the unyielding, metal arm – tightened around him as Bucky kicked open the door and walked inside. Steve blinked, his vision turning to grey patches. They were in a house, but it was too small for a house. That deep forest scent that would only ever smell like war to Steve. Pine and mold. A cabin?

Soon, he was deposited on a bed – the pain in his ribs flared like a firework – and Bucky rearranged Steve’s limbs, his arms between his knees. The cuffs on his wrists and ankles clicked back together. Bucky watched him for a moment, as if unsure what to do next. He hadn’t turned a light on. All the shadows wavered.

“Bucky?” Steve croaked. The numbness in his face was replaced by pain when he spoke.

“Don’t say that name again,” Bucky ordered and left the room. Steve heard him walk through the cabin, checking doors and windows, resetting the broken front door. He kept his breaths shallow, even though he knew he should be taking the occasional deep breath to help the air get in. He heard a door open and close. On the edge of his hearing, he could tell Bucky was checking the perimeter of the cabin.

Steve’s other senses added to the increasingly unpleasant tally. He could smell blood, vomit, and urine on himself, and under that, semen. His clothing felt disgusting – mostly but not entirely dry, hopefully most recently from sweat. His mouth tasted like blood and bile. The room smelled stale. It still smelled better than he did. His feet were bare, smeared with grime. They looked like cave fish, strangely far away, seemingly moving in the darkness of the room.

And he couldn’t hear Bucky, not for several long minutes.

Steve tried to remember what had happened. The bridge, HYDRA, the beatings, the rest of it. Bucky looking at him, then Bucky shooting Pierce in the head. It was the first time he’d seen Bucky disobey an order.

They must have escaped, somehow. Steve thought of Bucky’s precise, relentless movement on the bridge. Pierce probably wasn’t the only casualty HYDRA had suffered today – yesterday? Maybe Sam and Natasha had escaped, too. Or maybe they were still in the base, in cells that reeked like Steve did now.

Bucky was back in the range of his hearing, or at least making some noise now.  Steve heard the door open and close and the steps were louder. He heard a fridge door open and close and the sound of pouring water.

Bucky re-entered the room, with a plastic tumbler. He sat on the bed, posture stiff, watching Steve suspiciously. He gripped Steve’s shoulder and tipped the plastic cup against Steve’s lips. The water briefly reinvigorated the disgusting taste of his mouth and then eased it. The pain in his face reawakened with each swallow. He missed the numbness from the trunk.

“Bucky,” he said, as the other man drew back the tumbler. His tongue felt clumsy: too big in his mouth, weighing down his sore face.

“If you say that name again, I’ll shoot you in the head.”

Bucky rose and sat in the opposite corner of the room, his shoulders hunched beside the closet door. He sipped the remaining water, still watching Steve.

“Sleep,” he said.

Steve did.

 

* * *

 

The Asset watched the man twitch in his sleep and considered him. He couldn’t be a handler, or at least not an active one, because he was restrained. He shouldn’t be notable at all – just a target to capture. The Asset had already captured him. Why had it captured him twice?

The Asset had touched him, had ejaculated on his face, and elsewhere, which was admittedly unusual, if not unique. But those had been the orders, before – before –

The man was important enough to merit basic care. Exactly how more he merited would be determined. More observation was needed and with Pierce dead – Pierce _dead_ – and HYDRA compromised, this was the best location to conduct the observation. The Asset had met Pierce here, only a few times, and to the best of its knowledge, the location was not known to HYDRA. It had supplies, power, and was relatively defensible, if necessary. It had several points of egress. The front door led into a small kitchen; along with a bedroom and bathroom, it made up the top floor of the split-level cabin. Three steps down to the living area, which was well-appointed and largely superfluous, except for the iron stove.

It would serve until the Asset determined the correct next steps. Normally, it would return to base for debriefing, but the situation was not normal. Either it had badly malfunctioned or HYDRA had and neither of those things was supposed to happen.

It watched the man curled on the bed. He was healing already, which fit the profile it had received. He had been biddable, which did not fit the profile at all. The Asset had touched him, could touch him again now.

Voices in its head, shy and guilty. Young. _“Does it feel good, Buck?” “Yeah, Stevie, just…Just lemme show you, okay?”_

This leant credence to the internal malfunction theory. The Asset took a deep breath and readied itself to watch the target sleep. This was observation, too, and any data was useful.

 

* * *

 

It didn’t take Steve long to get tired of Bucky looking at him, even when Bucky’s image stopped swimming in front of him – something he couldn’t have imagined a few days before. There were several versions of Bucky’s stare. The hostile glare was the most common one. Much more rarely, Bucky would look at him as if he had no idea what to do with Steve, more confused than angry. The worst one was the blank stare. He stared at Steve like a cell wall.

Steve hadn’t called him Bucky again.

Bucky had been watching when he’d woken up: the confused, lost look. He grunted in response to Steve’s questions about Sam and Natasha, had muscled Steve into the small bathroom, held Steve’s cock as he pissed: the angry glare accompanied all his actions.

It remained as he sat Steve in the kitchen and fed him four peanut butter sandwiches. Bucky had toasted bread from the fridge freezer, and slathered the bread with peanut butter, glaring all the while. He’d fed Steve bites from sandwich halves, occasionally taking one for himself. The combination of the glare and the almost companionable trading of sandwich bites would have been funny, but it wasn’t. Most recently, he had put Steve back on the bed, reactivated the cuffs, and stared at him blankly.

Steve’s stomach grumbled, digesting the sandwiches. The hostile focus returned to Bucky’s face. That was his usual response to Steve doing anything, really. The confused look was likeliest to turn up when Steve hadn’t been paying direct attention to him, mostly evident by its disappearing traces when Steve looked back at Bucky. The blank look settled over time like dust on a shelf.

“What are we doing here?” Steve asked.

“Containment and observation,” Bucky responded. He was back in the corner. He had answered the question, at least.

“Why?”

The confused look, just for a second before the glare returned. Otherwise, it was if Bucky hadn’t heard the question.

“Okay,” Steve said. “You don’t have to cuff me. I won’t go anywhere.”

Bucky snorted. It was the first evidence he’d shown of a sense of humor.

“Really,” Steve insisted. “Have I tried to get away? Have I fought you?”

“You fought them.”

Steve reddened. “Yes, I did,” he said. For a second, all the pain – head, ribs, and cheek in particular – highlighted the feel of his dirty clothes on his skin. He suppressed a shudder. Shuddering might look too much like testing the cuffs.

“You didn’t fight me.” Bucky’s tone was factual. The plates on his arm shifted, but he didn’t move.

“No,” Steve said, thinking about the cell, about choking. “I didn’t.” He sighed. “The others you captured. Were they still being contained when we left? Are we waiting to be extracted?”

“I’ve touched you before,” Bucky said, blankness slipping over his features.

“Yes,” Steve replied quietly.

“The others may have escaped. The base was heavily compromised and civilian services were responding. Non-Hydra.” Bucky folded his hands over his knees: long pale fingers interlaced, flesh and metal. “There’s no pick-up. This location seems secure for now.”

Steve sighed. If Bucky had behaved at all like he had on the bridge, the base must have been in pieces when they left. SHIELD couldn’t be trusted, but if there’d been a chance to get out, Natasha would have made use of it. But nothing was confirmed.

“Why did you shoot Pierce?”

“Have I touched you often?”

This, at least, was Bucky all over: bull-headed with a habit of ignoring the questions he hadn’t asked, insisting on the ones he had. Steve considered how to phrase his answer.

“Not for a long time. We…we were separated. I thought you were dead. But before that-” Those touches couldn’t find purchase on this grimy skin and it was better not to think of them. “Before that, yes. Often.”

“I wasn’t supposed to,” the Asset said. _A ghost of sensation: a hand, strangely wide and pressed tight against its mouth to keep the others beyond the canvas from hearing. Its own hand, clapped on top of the first one as the man opened its body up, murmured devotions in its ear – working together to keep its fool mouth shut._ “I’m allowed to touch you now.”

“Well, if you-”

“Pierce said I could,” Bucky finished.

Steve laughed, and it was a little, sad sound. “You shot Pierce.”

“I don’t know why,” Bucky said abruptly, and he stood up and left the room.

It was hours before he came back. Steve tried to fill the time, cataloging his injuries, estimating how long they would take to heal, how much progress he’d made already. All in all, the STRIKE team had aimed for insult over injury, though they had preferred to combine the two. Soft tissue injuries, especially on the skin, were dramatic and paired so naturally with taunting and the rest of it, but they just didn’t keep. Not on Steve.

His vision was much clearer – no grey-outs, no doubling – even if his head was sore and the light still hurt his eyes. His ribs hurt badly when he breathed, but he could keep his breaths shallow. There was a lingering soreness in his ankles, in most of his joints.

His cheekbone was definitely broken. Add that to the ribs.

Steve had been so sure his arm had been broken, too, back at the base, but now it was just tender. How long had they driven? How badly was his memory compromised? It was difficult to distinguish between the pain that was present and the pain he expected. He was clenching, he knew – jaw and asshole, thighs and shoulders and knees. By now some of the soreness was his own fault from staying so tense. But most of it wasn’t.

Still, some of the swelling was down and nothing was healing incorrectly, that he could tell. Bucky must have reset anything out of line. Still patching him up, even if he’d been the one causing some of it.

Steve considered Pierce’s claims about Zola and the Russians. And Bucky – this staring, suspicious version of Bucky, who moved like the old Bucky did in the field, but constantly; who had touched him like a stranger.

Who had helped the STRIKE team and Rumlow try to humiliate him. Held him down while Rumlow laughed into the back of Steve’s neck, while his men gripped Steve’s thighs.

It had been humiliating but at least it was over. Unless Bucky decided it wasn’t.

Steve stared up at a paneled ceiling.

Escape wasn’t out of the question, except that it was. Incapacitating Bucky was a very long shot in his current condition and Steve wouldn’t leave without him. He could try talking him down: at least Bucky didn’t seem to think they needed to move on soon and he was willing to talk.

The light that bled past the curtain had an orange fullness by the time Bucky came back to the room.

“Can you shit?’ he asked shortly.

“Probably,” Steve said and readied himself for another little humiliation. He knew Bucky wouldn’t unlock the cuffs.

At least he probably wouldn’t enjoy it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Content Notes:  
> \- Bucky keeps Steve confined and cuffed; Steve makes the choice not to attempt to escape but the choice is made under significant emotional duress and physical injury  
> \- Steve is still significantly injured from his torture and assault; his head injuries receive the most direct reference  
> \- Bucky touches Steve without his permission; the touches are intended to be functional rather than sexual but Steve is deeply uncomfortable and Bucky never asks for Steve's consent  
> \- Bucky briefly remembers an adolescent sexual encounter with Steve; it is not depicted but he does 'hear' a small snippet of dialogue between them at the time  
> \- Bucky remembers a past consensual encounter during which his mouth was covered  
> \- Steve remembers his assault by STRIKE members and worries that Bucky might assault him again


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cabin sees more violence.

 

The Asset dozed. The prisoner had said he could be trusted and the Asset would hear if he tried to move from the bed. Falling on the floor would aggravate his injuries and compromise the timeline of his recovery. It would be preferable if he stayed on the bed and continued to accept care. Once his injuries improved, different tactics would be required to keep him secure.

_An unusual dream: he – it – he pushed through the smoky pub toward a beautiful woman, who looked like something off the silver screen. Who looked at him with an expression between scorn and pity. Except then her attention was off him, and they were both looking at the same thing._

_“I know you want him,” he said, voice low. “Thing is, so do I. And I’m not a good enough man to stay away. I won’t try.” He rubbed his nose, trying to look casual, failing. Anyone walking by would think the Sergeant was trying his luck with her again, shameless bastard. “I won’t get in your way. He deserves the things you can give him. But I won’t go away, neither.”_

_He coughed, watching her out of the corner of his eye. He’d never been so goddamn shifty before the war. Now he was all twitches and bravado unless there was a rifle in his hand._

_“We’ll have to explain it to him, I imagine,” she said quietly. Perfume and an iron will in this neat little package. “He has rather a limited imagination when it comes to what he deserves.” She made a thoughtful sound.  “You’ve offered your terms, Sergeant, and here are mine: you keep him safe in the field, I’ll do what I can from the SSR, and we do not argue in front of him. From now on, anything that needs settling, we’ll settle it. Otherwise that Papist tendency towards martyrdom will keep either of us from getting what we want. Agreed?”_

_He nodded jerkily and went back over to the table of ragged, laughing soldiers in the corner and the beautiful man with the familiar eyes and hands._

The information contained in the dream was irrelevant. The Asset clenched the knife in its hand and rested for now.

 

* * *

 

Steve was eating another peanut butter sandwich, bite by proffered bite, late the next afternoon when he asked.

“Can I shower?” He swallowed thickly. “You can leave the cuffs on, all of them. Please. I just want to feel clean for a bit.”

Bucky took a bite of the sandwich. Another thing he had in common with himself, even across the decades, was an indefatigable tolerance for peanut butter.

“You can’t be left alone,” he said as if he’d explained that it would rain that day.

“Fine,” Steve said. He wasn’t looking forward to seeing himself naked in the mirror, but at least Bucky seemed, if anything, even less interested in the sight. He hoped it stayed that way.

After the sandwich, Bucky walked him to the bathroom. He cut off Steve’s clothing rather than try to navigate it around the cuffs. The stiff, grimy material parted under the knife and whispered dully on the floor. The knife moved over him like a breath, insubstantial but with a force all the same. Steve worried he might get hard and tongued his sore cheek to stay focused.

Bucky looked about as interested as he did when he made six sandwiches in a row.

Steve hadn’t been naked in the cell, not all at once. Clothing had been wrenched aside or torn open and left that way. Dragged around his ankles. This wasn’t like that.

Bucky was looking at him now. It wasn’t like that at all.

Steve was entirely naked, wrists bound together and ankles free but still cuffed. Bucky pulled the curtain aside and motioned him into the shower stall. He stood under the nozzle, unable to avoid blinking as he turned the dial and the water spat on. Cold, then lukewarm. He wondered if Bucky was still looking at him with the blank stare. Steve was moving, rubbing clumsy hands through his hair, spitting in the drain, so that might merit the angry glare. But Steve wasn’t looking at him, so maybe it was the confused look, the one that Steve saw in the periphery of his vision like a shadow.

There was a bar of soap. He used it where he could reach, wiping suds over skin and hair. It felt good to rub it into his skin, even on the loosening scabs and tender bruises. He still didn’t look at Bucky. He faced away from the fall of the water and angled his ass up. It was still sore, but this was as close as he could get to cleaning himself properly. He didn’t dare face that way for long. Sometimes Bucky seemed inflexible; sometimes he seemed worryingly suggestible. Steve couldn’t trust his posture not to give Bucky ideas and the realization made his stomach roil.

There were still spots he couldn’t reach, but he turned, facing up into the spray. Rinsing felt good, if heavy-handedly symbolic. When there was no order to leave the shower, Steve soaped up again. Rinsed again. It was the longest shower he’d had in a year.

If he could get Bucky to come with him, he would have all the hideous conversations with his therapist that she thought were necessary.  Water dripped from Steve’s nose into his cupped hands, then onto the edge of the drain.   

Bucky reached in to shut off the shower. He had a towel in his other hand and unfolded it as Steve stepped out of the stall. He dried him efficiently, briskly – not worsening Steve’s injuries but not avoiding them either. Bucky’s fingers gripped him through the towel, leaving his skin a deep pink that the tepid water hadn’t caused. It could have been 1941, save a few key, horrible details, like the misery in Steve’s throat when Bucky rubbed the towel briefly in the sore cleft of his ass.

He herded Steve back into the bedroom and motioned for him to sit on the bed. Bucky watched him for a moment, looking him over, so it wasn’t like the cell at all. Steve wondered if he’d spend the rest of this strange getaway naked, clothed only in the smell of pine and mold, but Bucky rummaged through the dresser, pulled out soft trousers and a plain grey shirt.

“You’re bigger than Pierce,” he said. “They’ll be tight.”

“Pierce?” Steve asked.

“It’s his cabin,” Bucky said. He handed Steve the pants but kept the shirt. He watched Steve awkwardly shimmy the pants on with his wrists bound. The pants were tight in the ass and thighs, short in the leg, but they were less of an encumbrance than the cuffs and they were clean, thank the blessed Virgin for small favors.

It wasn’t the first time he’d worn a dead man’s clothes, but it was the first time he’d been unreservedly thankful both for the clothes and the death of the man who’d owned them.

Pierce’s cabin, Pierce’s shower. Pierce’s worn bar of soap.

“This is so fucking weird,” he said, because it was what Bucky would have said, if he was there.

The future’s Bucky cuffed Steve’s wrists and ankles together and left him alone on the bed.

 

* * *

 

Steve woke to being touched and he panicked, writhing on the cell floor, which became the bed. There was a hand on his stomach, angled under his arms. The hand was stroking him like a spooked horse. A second hand held him by the shoulder, pressing Steve steadily into the bed until he stilled. He was curled up, facing the wall, with Bucky bent over him.

“Don’t move,” Bucky said. His voice was rough. “You’ll get the shirt after, if you don’t move.”

Was it worse if the bargaining was real or feigned?

He should have moved. He stayed tense on the bed.

Was it worse if it was the remains of an order or if it wasn’t?

Bucky leaned over him, his hair touching Steve’s shoulder. It felt like the rags Steve had left on the bathroom floor. His breath was sour on Steve’s face.

No-one had kissed him in the cell, except Rumlow. He’d kissed him once, to make a point Steve didn’t remember. He had bitten Rumlow, catching his cheek in his teeth and worrying him like a terrier would a rat. It was a move straight out of the Brooklyn back-alleys and it was, briefly, satisfying.

Bucky didn’t kiss him and Steve didn’t bite. Bucky just breathed the air coming out of Steve’s mouth. They traded it back and forth while he gripped Steve’s shoulder with one unyielding hand. With the other, he continued to stroke Steve’s stomach, rubbing lower with each pass. He undid the fly of Steve’s pants and palmed his cock, as if for the first time.

Steve couldn’t resist shuddering and it did look like he was testing the cuffs but it didn’t interrupt the slide of Bucky’s palm, rubbing up and down his cock. The hand squeezed, stroking him. He was shamefully hard and his shoulders sagged with relief when the touch withdrew, when it slipped around to the small of Steve’s back. The hand tugged at the lip of the pants, gentle at first, then shoving them down his thighs.

 “Please stop,” Steve croaked. “You can keep the shirt.”

Bucky rolled Steve over, half on his front. He pulled at Steve’s flesh, exposing his sore asshole. Bucky spat on it and Steve panicked again as he felt Bucky’s fingers dipping into the spit, touching him. Bucky spat again. Steve started thrashing.

 “Bucky, _please_ -”

Bucky held him down and dragged his forehead across Steve’s temple, inhaling harshly through his nose, breathing uneven, but after a pause, he pulled Steve’s pants back up. He didn’t fix the fly, didn’t touch Steve’s traitorously aching cock at all.

He palmed Steve’s shoulders, squeezing before snaking both arms around him, wrapping him tightly. Bucky pressed his face to Steve’s neck and trembled.

Steve was afraid they’d sleep like this – or at least Bucky might, eventually – in a perversion of how they used to sleep when Bucky was at home, was his home.

He shivered, and it was his turn to stare at the wall and wait for nothing.

 

* * *

 

The Asset realized as it released the man on the bed, that it was observing itself as much as it was the other. Perhaps containing itself, too, in this isolated location. Its actions were nonsensical: it treated a prisoner like a pet, clutched at him like a toy. It had whined for more and allowed itself to be refused.

It watched the man shiver. He would need care soon – watering, feeding, being allowed to expel waste.

He merited care and containment, but the Asset required repair. But if contact with HYDRA was irreconcilable with keeping the man, was repair impossible? What then? More voices, more dreams until it drowned in them, in all likelihood.

The Asset dug in the closet and found a blanket. It lay the material over the huddled form. It tucked the blanket under his shaking feet.  Soon after, it walked out of the cabin and into the woods. It looked up past grasping, close branches to a darkening sky.

Voices in its head: hoarse and amused. _“Do ya love me, Stevie?” “Course, I do, stupid. Who’d be in bed with this ugly mug if they didn’t love it?” “Show me? …Yeah, like that, Rogers. Show me.”_

Around it, there was movement and noise in the woods. The warp and weft of natural activity, with the Asset’s engineered stillness and silence like a rupture in the cloth.

It waited for the stars to come out and it hoped the voices would come back, if in few enough numbers that it might swim in them rather than slip under.

 

* * *

 

“How do I make you like it?” Bucky asked the next day. They sat at the kitchen table.

“Put something in it other than peanut butter,” Steve said through a bite of sandwich.

Bucky put the sandwich back down on the plate. He watched Steve chew.

“How do I make you like it when I touch you?”

Steve’s heart gave a little squeeze. “You can’t make someone like it, Buck. That’s not how it works.”

“Why do you use that name?” The name had prompted the promise of violence days ago; today, it prompted a question. Progress of a kind.

“It’s your name. I mean, it was.”

“From when I touched you and you liked it.”

“Yes.”

Bucky picked the sandwich back up and fed him the rest. He led Steve back to the bedroom and cuffed him in the same wrists to ankles position in which he’d spent the night. Bucky left the room, which wasn’t unusual, but the sound of the shower coming on soon after was a surprise.

Steve heard heavier things hitting the floor, alongside the fabric, the shoes. He suspected that Bucky had dropped some of his equipment, but not all of it. He heard the changing pattern of the water – not drumming against the shower wall now, with something in the way. He heard grunts of pain and a hissing sound that subsided, leaving the drip of the water.

He listened to Bucky shower. When was the last time he’d done that?

Eventually, the shower was turned off and Bucky walked back in the bedroom, naked and dripping. Steve’s stomach clenched. The tac suit and the equipment were slung over his shoulder before he dropped them in the far corner where he spent much of the night. From the bed, Steve could see he was a mass of bruises, purple, yellow, and green. He was more muscular than Steve remembered: a draft horse to Bucky’s thoroughbred. The old joke intruded: _“Ya saying you’re the jockey, Stevie? Ya got the build.”_ But there were familiar details: the long, crooked toes; the trim waist; the scar on his ass from Mrs. Patterson’s dog.

There were a lot of new scars. And the arm, which Steve saw wedded to a scarred shoulder.

Bucky was watching Steve look him over.

“Take a picture,” he said, then looked confused by something. He narrowed his eyes and turned away. Rifling through the dresser, he took out pants and a t-shirt. The grey one he had bargained with Steve over was still on top of the dresser. He pulled on the pants and shirt, then rearranged the vest from the tac suit back over his shoulders.  He rearranged his holsters, checked over his equipment and then, incongruously, braided his hair back from his face.

“Looks good,” Steve said.

“Not so good you want it near you,” Bucky said quietly and when he spoke again, his tone was louder, frustrated. “If I can’t make you like it, how do I-” Bucky broke off the sentence with a grimace. “What will it take so you’ll like it?”

“Bucky,” Steve said, looking, really _looking_ at him. “Do you remember what happened in the cell?”

Bucky paused as if reviewing facts. “But you – you were there so they could –” His face twitched and he left the room. Steve listened to him wash the dishes from lunch and then, walk to the living room. There was a sound of splintering wood and broken glass.

Bucky was smashing furniture.

 

* * *

 

The Asset was destroying resources unnecessarily, which was unusual. Another malfunction in a pile of them. It beat a chair against the wall, scarring the paint, puncturing the drywall underneath. Eventually, there was just half a chair-leg in its hand, digging into unprotected skin.  The other hand gripped splinters, then powder. It dropped the wood and grabbed the small glass coffee table.

And there was a memory. It could feel it on its tongue as it demolished the room.

_He was in bed with a curvy redhead. He made her come twice and they were lying on her bed. It sagged in the middle, drawing them together. His mouth tasted like the depths of her cunt._

_“Your little friend, the one with yellow hair,” she said. Her tone was casual, edged by a yawn._

_Steve’s hair wasn’t yellow, though – it was golden._

_“Yeah, what about him?” He’d asked, considering whether it was time to start pulling on his clothes. Usually, Lilian was great fun and entirely unconcerned with anything beyond fun. She’d never brought up Steve before._

_“He’s pretty for a boy, except for the nose. Tracy said he’s polite, too. Well-spoken, clean, all that.”_

_“Uh-huh,” he said. “Should I be jealous?”_

_“Well, it’s not my place to say,” she said tartly, but then she eyed him thoughtfully. “No offense, Barnes, but I usually like them smaller. I like a guy I can push around a little.”_

_He chuckled and knew he could put off picking up his socks. He touched her breasts instead, smiling lazily. “No-one pushes Steve around, Lil.” Drawing his tongue over pebbled skin made her shiver. She tasted pleasantly uncomplicated and would remain so long as he could keep Steve out of the conversation, out of his head when he came. He would this time._

_Who knew, maybe she’d been thinking about Steve when she came, too._

The Asset was not soothed by the violence or the memory. It wanted to taste blood.

 

* * *

 

“I don’t care if you don’t like it,” Bucky said when he came back to the bedroom. “You can fight back if you want.”

He de-activated the cuffs, leaving them inert on Steve’s wrists and ankles. He forced Steve onto his back and ran his hands over him. He was looking for injuries, prodding spots that made Steve wince. Provocation in his fingers, a challenge in his grip.

“If you don’t fight back, I’ll keep going,” he said, voice starting to shiver, and took hold of Steve’s cheek. He squeezed the bone and when Steve groaned, he showed his teeth.

“Fight like you fought them,” he barked and back-handed Steve with his left hand, hitting exactly where it had inside the cell. Steve tried not to scream.

He could fight back. He could wrestle Bucky, knock him out, and take him in. He could.

Bucky gripped Steve’s throat with both hands and kissed him. He bit down on Steve’s lower lip and pulled at it, worrying at the fading mark that had been a fissure in his skin, would be again soon.

The Asset wanted. It wanted to suck the man’s cock and spit his release back at him. It wanted to tear soft flesh from him in strips and swallow it, starting with his face. It wanted him to like it when it touched him. It would do anything if he would just like it.

But he wouldn’t like anything it did.

“Goddammit. God- _fucking_ -dammit,” Bucky said, biting Steve again, and the words tasted like blood and peanut butter. He shifted his weight, dumping Steve on the floor. The crumpling cage of his ribs wrapped Steve in pain. Their shoulders hit the dresser, cracking the veneer of a drawer.

Rolling on top of Steve, knees half-on, half-off his chest, Bucky tugged open the fly of his pants. Steve made a small sound in his throat.

Bucky slowed at the sound, and he made eye contact with the man pinned under his weight as he pulled out his cock. He leaned forward and jerked his hand. He laughed.  It sounded like wood splintering in the next room.

“Do I have to do it again?” he spat. He was pulling at his cock roughly, frantic again, and Steve grabbed his wrist.

“You don’t have to do that,” Steve said, trying not to look at how Bucky grabbed himself, like he was trying to rip himself apart. “You don’t have to hurt me, Buck. You don’t.”

Bucky froze. He stared at the hand on his wrist and laughed. He rolled off of Steve and sank his shoulders into the side of the mattress.

“What, then?” he asked. He was empty of every voice but Steve’s. “Tell me what to do.”

“Well, we could go for a hike.”

The laughter bubbled up again, hysterical, and Bucky stifled it with the fist. The Asset thought the metal hand could force its way down his throat, find the laughter’s source and wrench it out. It would be better if it did, better that than this.

“Why did I take you?” he asked. “Why—why can’t I take you back?”

Steve sat up on the floor, in this cabin that belonged to a dead megalomaniac, and tried to explain.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Content Notes:  
> \- Steve remains restrained to some degree throughout most of the chapter  
> \- Bucky cuts off the remains of Steve's clothing  
> \- Steve showers while Bucky watches; he feels vulnerable and worries that Bucky will hurt him again  
> \- Bucky assaults Steve while he's sleeping and attempts to bargain for Steve's consent; he gropes Steve and begins to penetrate him, but stops; Steve is physically aroused but is deeply upset and uninterested in any sexual contact; he asks Bucky to stop and Bucky continues to touch him before stopping  
> \- Bucky recalls a consensual sexual encounter with a woman; oral sex is referenced  
> \- Steve overhears Bucky acting violently in another room before Bucky assaults Steve, striking him, biting him, and threatening to orgasm on his face again; he touches himself violently  
> \- Bucky imagines forcing oral sex on Steve and biting off and consuming Steve's flesh (this does not occur)

**Author's Note:**

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